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Seven Days

Wednesday, June 5
Word gets out that cuts in UT funding by the state could lead to the demise of the university's public radio affiliate WUOT. Outraged listeners stage protests and rallies. Really, a failing education system and padlocked state parks are one thing, but taking away our Mozart and Vivaldi? The very idea!

Thursday, June 6
An entrepreneur's plans to expand his successful van-shuttle service between West Knoxville and the Nashville airport to include airports in Chattanooga and Atlanta are aired. Next thing you know, someone's going to come up with a really futuristic idea, like maybe an inter-airport rail line to shorten travel time between cities.

Friday, June 7
The Associated Press reports that Colonial Pipeline Co. has decided not to pursue its proposal for a motor fuel pipeline between Alabama and Nashville because of environmental objections, and may reroute the pipeline through East Tennessee, perhaps to the Knoxville area. Apparently, East Tennessee environmentalists aren't expected to have as much clout as those in Middle Tennessee.
The Knox County school board votes to delay plans to demolish part of old South High School. Apparently they finally got the memo that knocking down old buildings is unfashionable this season.

Saturday, June 8
Lennox Lewis hammers Mike Tyson in Memphis to retain the heavyweight boxing title. Women everywhere cheer the Tyson defeat.

Monday, June 10
Mayor Ashe discloses that street repaving funds in the city budget will be trimmed to make up for an error in revenue projections. Automobile wheel alignment and suspension repair shops' stock rises on the local market.

Knoxville Found

(Click photo for larger image)

What is this? Every week in "Knoxville Found," we'll print the photo of a local curiosity. If you're the first person to correctly identify this oddity, you'll win a special prize plucked from the desk of the editor (keep in mind that the editor hasn't cleaned his desk in five years). E-mail your guesses, or send 'em to "Knoxville Found" c/o Metro Pulse, 505 Market St., Suite 300, Knoxville, TN 37902.

Last Week's Photo:
As many of you told us, last week's photo is a picture window on the Central Street side of Carpet Headquarters, located on the corner of Central and Broadway. Many (if not most) of the trophies appear to be for softball victories, ranging in dates from around the early '80s to at least 2000. The trophies were won by a youngish fellow who was at the store at closing time this past Monday, but, apparently not liking the looks of one very sweaty journalist, the folks there closed the doors before said journalist could ask any more questions. Victor Eijkhout of Knoxville was first to identify the photo and receives Observatory Mansions, a debut novel from Edward Carey (yes, another book; we're having a clearance).

Meet Your City
A calendar of upcoming public meetings you should attend

City Council special meeting
Thursday, June 13
10 a.m.
324 Wesley Road (inclement weather location: Bearden Middle School auditorium)
Topic is putting a sidewalk on Wesley Road.

Metropolitan Planning Commission
Thursday, June 13
1:30 p.m.
City County Bldg.
Main Assembly Room
400 Main Ave.
General Shale's plan for strip-mining north of Millertown Pike and east of Harris Road.

City Council special meeting
Wednesday, June 19
10 a.m.
Market Square
Topic is the Kinsey Probasco contract for Market Square redevelopment.

Voter Cycle
What's the benefit or risk of changing city elections?

It's going to be a long summer, politically speaking, and come election day, Knox Countians will be helping to choose a new governor and a new U.S. senator, as well as passing judgment on all their state representatives and a couple of state senators. On the local level, there will be at least one vigorous general election fight over a County Commission seat, and the sheriff's race is guaranteed to generate a lot of heat.

But neither heat nor light seem to be attending one item on the Aug. 1 ballot, even though it will affect every voter and candidate in the city of Knoxville. The question, with some elaboration, is this:

"Shall the charter of the city of Knoxville be amended so as to change the time of elections and to change the term of office for the mayor, the municipal judge and members of City Council?" Voters will say yes or no, and by doing so, will decide whether to change the city's odd-year election cycle to even-numbered years, in order to coincide with state and county elections. If this ballot question is received like most referendum questions, it will pass overwhelmingly.

Adding to the air of inevitability is the fact that practically the only one talking about the issue has been Mayor Victor Ashe, who set his sights on changing the election cycle several years ago, and maintains that such a change will save money and increase voter turnout. Ashe knows how to promote his cause, and has been talking up the change for at least two years.

On the other side, there's Leslie Terry, a music teacher who ran a credible campaign for the 2nd District City Council seat last year, and is expected to make a run for an at-large seat when the next city elections roll around, be it even-year or odd. Terry opposes changing the city election cycle, has done her research and is working on putting together a group of like-minded cycle-change opponents.

"I objected to making the change all along because I don't think it's right to do that to city voters and candidates," Terry says. "We need to think of ways to get people involved, rather than just jury-rigging the timetable."

Terry makes the point that the referendum ordinance won't save that much money, since it merely transposes the city's September and November elections to even-numbered years. Since the county general elections (and state primaries) are in August, there will still have to be a separate city primary in September.

As for the issue of voter turnout, Terry has charted voter participation in local elections, and points out that while the city 2001 voter turnout was only 18 percent, it was still a significant improvement over the 9 percent turnout in 1997. The difference between the two elections was probably due to the fact that no incumbents were running (thanks to term limits) in 2001.

The 1987 city general election was the champion vote-getter of modern times, and drew 40 a percent turnout. Why? Could be because there was no incumbent running for mayor (it was Ashe's first run for the office). Turnout in subsequent elections dwindled as Ashe won the office outright in the September primaries.

Former City Councilwoman Carlene Malone is a longtime opponent of changing the election cycle. In her view, the best reason to keep city elections separate is that combining election cycles will "really limit the amount of objective information that the voters will get, because with other elections going on, whether state or federal, that is where the media will focus. City elections become a footnote.

"The only information voters will get, by and large, is the highly subjective information sent out by the candidates. There'll be no balance to that subjective information because radio and TV airtime and newspaper space will be taken by state and federal elections. The effect of this is to greatly favor more than ever the well-funded candidate who can do the mass mailings and the purchase of TV, radio and print advertising. A democracy works when information through the media is objective and readily available."

Whether these issues themselves get a thorough airing before the vote this August—in other words, whether they can compete for attention with all the county and state races—may well determine the future of city politics.

—Betty Bean

Shale Storm
Strip mine operator faces community resistance

General Shale, a subsidiary of an Austrian-owned brick-making conglomerate with a production plant on Riverside Drive and strip mining operations in a residential area of northeast Knox County, is threatening to leave town if denied a permit to expand its operation near Millertown Pike.

The brick maker is scheduled to go before the Metropolitan Planning Commission Thursday to get approval to resume working on a site that Knox County officials ordered them to quit mining last year. Even with the expected favorable MPC ruling this week, the next stop will be County Commission, where residents of the surrounding neighborhoods are expected to mount a vigorous opposition to granting the permit, and representatives of General Shale will announce that they will leave Knox County if they don't get what they want.

They've all been there before, and the neighborhood forces have been winning most of the battles. But this time could be different.

General Shale moved into the area around Sentertown, a small, rural African-American community on Millertown Pike, some 40 years ago. They were taken to court, and after a decade of litigation, they said that they'd be done with the Sentertown site in 15 years. Many of their neighbors would like to compel them to keep their word. Others, who are in the minority, say they can co-exist with the brick-maker. County Commission will hear from both sides.

"I just feel like it's going to be ram-rodded in on us this time," says Fay Loftis, who lives adjacent to another piece of General Shale-owned property that has been tied up in litigation since 1998. She says she'd like to get strip mining "out of my back yard," and fears that residential development in the area will cease if the operations expand.

"We don't want to run them out of Knox County, but I live right at Site B on Harris Road. The property goes all the way down the ridge to Mary Emily Lane. General Shale owns 250 acres in this area. I do not believe they need to move their manufacturing plant out of Knox County, but we are making it easy for them to rape this land and carry it off to the plant on Riverside Drive for pennies, and that's not right, either. I have a problem with them being a conglomerate of 70 brick-making com-panies, and I have a problem with them being Austrian, with the money going back overseas."

Lawyer John King represents General Shale, which is moving aggressively to press its case. Last year, King presented data supporting the company's contention that its operations do not depress area real-estate values The company has also hired lobbyist Joe May, and has begun to run television ads airing threats to take its 117 jobs and leave Knox County if denied a permit. The company is also offering to start reclamation work on its existing site and not to come closer than 1,000 feet from Millertown Pike on the new site.

These promises are met with some skepticism by their neighbors.

"General Shale has never reclaimed any of the Sentertown site," says North East Knox Preservation Association President

Lisa Starbuck. "The only reason they are talking about it now is because they think County Commission will be more sympathetic if they talk about reclamation. We are afraid that 'reclamation' to them means regrading the top of the ridge and making the ridge just a little hill. This hole will be visible for miles."

Loftis, Starbuck and their neighbors who live in the northeast Knox County communities perched on the ridges and tucked into the lush green valley between Washington Pike and Millertown Pike are feeling somewhat beleaguered these days. Two years ago, they banded together to form the North East Knox Preservation Association to fight off unwanted industrial development in the form of an H.T. Hackney trucking center proposed for a site that was zoned residential. They won a narrow victory, but since that time have been dismayed to find themselves portrayed as chronic "aginners" who drove a local business out of town (Hackney's decision to relocate to Roane County was used, with varying degrees of success, as a campaign issue in recent County Commission primary elections).

Not many months passed after the Hackney battle until they found themselves going back to County Commission to oppose General Shale's plans to expand a 30-year-old Millertown Pike strip-mining operation onto a 47-acre site adjacent to their nearly-depleted original site. NEKPA was successful, thanks to a well-organized lobbying effort, strategic mistakes on General Shale's part, and the timely appearance of state Rep. Joe Armstrong at the County Commission hearing. Armstrong, a powerful legislator and former County Commissioner whose family lives near the strip mine operation, still wields great influence with that body.

Members of NEKPA fear that if General Shale has its way with the "new" site (known as the Harden property), it will give the company leverage in its fight to open up a third site on Harris Road, which has been tied up in litigation since 1998.

Last year, General Shale's major mistake was starting to work the new site prior to getting a county permit. Lawyer King asserted that having a state water-quality permit was sufficient for work to begin, but Knox County regulators disagreed and issued a stop-work order. County Commission voted the new permit down.

The Pumpkin Valley Shale formation is the underlying reason for the litigation. It forms long parallel bands along these ridge slopes, and exists in abundance in East Tennessee. Laid down during the Middle Cambrian Period, it is dull brown to greenish-gray and is prime brick-making material. The reason the mining operations are going on in the agricultural and residential areas watchdogged by NEKPA is because they are already there. General Shale's operations have been declared a "nuisance" by a Knox County chancellor and by the executive director of MPC, who both reasoned that it is better to confine its activities to a place where it already exists rather than to seek a new location and anger a new set of neighbors.

—Betty Bean